“How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil; Your hair is like a flock of goats That have descended from Mount Gilead.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead.
- KJV Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.
- BSB How beautiful you are, my darling—how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.
- NKJV Behold, you are fair, my love! Behold, you are fair! You have dove’s eyes behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, Going down from Mount Gilead.
- NLT You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The beloved praises the bride's beauty, especially her eyes and hair. It begins his admiring description of her loveliness.
Overview
He calls her beautiful and likens her veiled eyes to doves and her flowing hair to a flock descending Gilead. The praise is tender, specific, and delights in her whole person. The Lord likewise beholds His people as beautiful, taking joy in them through His grace (Song 1:15; Isa. 62:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Song 6:5Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead.
- Song 1:15Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves.
- Song 6:7Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
- Mic 7:14Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest, in the middle of fertile pasture land, let them feed; in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
- Song 2:14My dove in the clefts of the rock, In the hiding places of the mountainside, Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
- Song 4:9–10You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.
- Song 7:5Your head on you is like Carmel. The hair of your head like purple. The king is held captive in its tresses.
- 2 Cor 3:18But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
- Ezek 16:14Your renown went out among the nations for your beauty; for it was perfect, through my majesty which I had put on you,” says the Lord Yahweh.
- Phil 2:3–5doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself;
- Song 5:11–12His head is like the purest gold. His hair is bushy, black as a raven.
- Num 32:40Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh; and he lived therein.
- Song 2:10My beloved spoke, and said to me, “Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.
- Num 32:1Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of livestock. When they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that behold, the place was a place for livestock;
- Ps 45:11So the king will desire your beauty, honor him, for he is your lord.
- Matt 11:29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The poetry of covenant love between bride and bridegroom pictures, at its highest, the love of Christ for his church — the Bridegroom who gave himself for his bride.
How Song of Songs 4:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.